Episode 12
Summary Maruna brings Gandharva to the outskirts of Atera. They decide that attacking from the outside would be futile because of the barrier and the turrets, so they plot to get into the city through the checkpoint. Maruna warns that there is a high probability the city is being protected by a god, but Gandharva retorts that he has no fear of gods. A quick flashback shows a battle between Gandharva in sura form and Agni, with a planet between them. The pair spots a group of half hunters with two young and injured Garuda halfs in tow. The hunters are carrying a large bone that has the effect of making halfs weak and easy to catch. Maruna wants to kill them, but Gandharva wants to ask them questions first and so they approach them. The hunters assume Maruna is a Garuda half, and one of them begins to make fun of Gandharva's appearance. Maruna loses his cool over their disrespect, and soon all three hunters are out cold. Gandharva helps out the halfs, and is pleased when one of them calls him a good person. After Maruna drops off the halfs at a nearby half community, Gandharva searches through one of the hunters' belongings and finds a black card—a magician's license. He then transforms himself into a more human-like form with shorter hair and pale, non-blue skin color, and pulls out his sura eye before putting on an eyepatch. He looks forward to seeing Agni again. 1-12 Maruna carries Gandharva.png|Maruna carries Gandharva by the collar 1-12 Maruna cleans up.png|cleaning up the trash 1-12 Gandharva's human form.png|city-bound Currygom's comment They're finally back, and this entire episode revolved around just the two of them. Afterword ■ Gandharva and Maruna have returned after a long absence. Gandharva's face really looks different depending on which side is showing. This side looks like something from a horror story, doesn't it? ■ Half-bloods have 50% mixed sura and human blood, as it was explained in the yellow text in the webtoon. They have non-human body parts, and they live 4x longer than pure-blood humans. In other words, their actual age is 4x their age of appearance. ★ When I said 50% mixed blood, I meant that they have 50% or more sura blood, born between a sura + a pure-blood human, a sura + a half, two halfs, etc. Additionally, quarter-bloods are 25% mixed-blood. (There is 25% or more sura blood and less than 50%.) They live twice as long as pure-blood humans and their bodies are not as strong as halfs, but they can use magic, so they are overall stronger than halfs. Halfs can't use magic, unlike quarters, but there exist halfs who can use sura transcendental skills. ■ Gandharva and Maruna are not halfs, but actual suras. They are superior suras who can take human form. They still retain sura body parts while in their human form, so they resemble halfs. There are a few methods to distinguish a half from a real sura, but none of them are 100% foolproof. One common method is to feed them vegetables, but there are suras who can eat vegetables so that method isn't very reliable. In the human realm now, there are no superior suras which can take human form—at least that's how people understand it. Whenever anyone sees someone with sura body parts, they will think, "That's a half." They'd never suspect that they are real suras. The suspicion that the red sky attacks were made by superior suras is only discussed among high-ranked magicians, and the general public is unaware of it. ■ Yaksha's bone. (Rare item. There are many bone fragments, so this one isn't unique.) This item has the effect of making nearby halfs weaker (the distance depends on the size of the bone fragment). If this happened to be an item that instead made suras weaker, it would be awesome, but it only works on halfs, so magicians generally have no interest in it. Even though some magicians are opposed to the idea, most magicians think of halfs as humans... So other than worthless half hunters and magicians who really hate halfs, nobody has any interest in that kind of item. The quarter magician Agwen Rajof (whose name was mentioned in Best Challenge), who travels with a half-dragon, bought many of these bone fragments and had them destroyed, so there aren't that many bone fragments left on the market. In spite of that, they don't have much value except to collectors, so the price for them isn't very high. ■ If its ability is not as useless as in the case above, a sura body part is generally quite valuable. It can give you some effects just by being an item, and when you eat it(!) you could gain some kind of ability. But it's useless to cut off the body part when the sura is still alive because when the missing part regenerates, the part that was cut from the main body disappears. (Even if you already ate it, you don't gain anything,) So then what? You have no choice but to kill the sura. Once it's dead, you can cut or crush it, but the body won't disappear. So the fact that the bone fragments are being sold in the market means that the owner of those bone fragments, Yaksha (the first king of the Yaksha clan) is dead. ■ The name of this skill is Crimson Homing Beam. Now we know about two of Maruna's transcendentals. (The first was Crimson Lightning in Episode 4.) He used another skill to attack Leez's village, and in Episode 6, Brilith talked about examples of other villages but other things came up, too. But the skill in this episode is like a guided missile. He was trying to blow up just three people... The skill name is not used in the webtoon, and the reason for that is explained in the afterword for Episode 4. ■ Gandharva has wings, too (see the Prologue for reference), so why is he being carried like that? His wings can't be used for flying. They only serve a decorative purpose. (In the Best Challenge version he could fly in human form, but that's been changed.) So Maruna has to carry(?) him. When Maruna travels long distances, he transforms to his sura form and carries Gandharva, but it's too bothersome to transform just to travel a short distance. He could carry him more comfortably, but he always carries him with one hand as if he was carrying an object. Gandharva thinks "it doesn't matter" with an expression of enlightenment... Notes * As shown here, Gandharva's sura form can reach planet-sized or larger (nastikas can change the size of their sura form). However, Gandharva is now weakened and unable to take sura form due to several reasons, including the sneaky bastards he talks about. * There is speculation that the scene shown here is Gandharva destroying the planet Gresvan. * The half hunters mention Mistyshore. We see more mentions of the treatment of halfs in Mistyshore later on. We later find out the reason why halfs have lost their rights. * The bones used by the hunters are the bones of the Yaksha king. Currygom mentioned in a me2day post that Yaksha died long ago because he "gave too much to humans". This seems unrelated to the current events. * Maruna looks down on most humans, but he respects halfs from allied clans. * Show/Hide Spoiler Saha On may be among those trying to pass the bill on half rights: he seems to be one of the most dedicated to passing bills, is the presiding Judge of Magic, has a half bodyguard and seems to care most about justice. * Gandharva used to be cruel, but turned pacifist under the influence of his now-deceased wife. In an extra scene in Volume 2, after the halfs thank him, he thinks about his wife. * Though suras can take human form, all suras retain at least one sura body part. In Gandharva's case, it is his right eye, so taking it out is enough for him to fool the checkpoint. * In this episode, we see a city's turrets for the first time. References